Kylah Frye knows that Black Ensemble audiences come for the music, making the book for this musical bio-revue arguably the most no-frills directive in the theater's history. We've got these four singers, you see. The duo played by Aeriel Williams and Chantee Joy represent Lena Horne at two divergent stages of her career, while the other pair, played by Jayla Craig and Rhonda Preston, are introduced as the younger and (ahem) older Nancy Wilson. After commenting on the curiosity of two such chronologically and temperamentally dissimilar pop superstars of color sharing the stage, our headliners proceed to dictate the evening's agenda—over the protests of (mostly male) managers, husbands and club emcees—thus demonstrating why these warblers from the 1940s and 50s, whose silky-sweet voices concealed a steely determination to make their own choices, are worthy of our attention in 2019. The major part of the evening, then, is devoted to re-enactments of jazz-club standards as "Stormy Weather""Night and Day" and "One For the Road"—nostalgic remnants of an era now associated with repression and hypocrisy simmering beneath bland exteriors, but endowed with depth and defiance by the powerhouse vocalists of the Black Ensemble, assisted by a squad of protean utility players and Robert Reddrick's flamethrower stage band to make the most of the final exhortation to "Believe in Yourself." The somber moments are few and quickly dispelled, however. ("Historical facts?" the four divas sneer, "That's so boring!") On opening night, playgoers of all ages could be witnessed skipping out of the theater onto Clark Street chirping the classic "I Got Rhythm."
